Jagna Ciuchta: The Fold of the Cosmic Belly

From 17th September to 27th November 2021
Opening: Thursday 16th September, 6pm to 10pm

Jagna Ciuchta with Aïcha and Sheila Atala, Miriam Cahn, Patty Chang, Arnaud Cousin, Chloé Dugit-Gros, Allal El Karmoudi, Fadma El Karmoudi, Karima El Karmoudi, Nan Goldin, Nancy Holt, Marta Huba, Suzanne Husky, Graciela Iturbide, Janka Patocka, Samir Ramdani, Martha Salimbeni, Alina Szapocznikow, Dorothea Tanning, Eden Tinto Collins, T. Venkanna

Jagna Ciuchta et Janka Patocka, Le pli du ventre cos­mique, intro­duc­tion, 2021 (détail). Plexiglas noir, pan­neaux laqués, MDF alvéolé, papiers découpés, pho­to­copies, papier miroir, bandes adhé­sives. Vue de l’expo­si­tion de Jagna Ciuchta, Le pli du ventre cos­mique, 2021, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris. Photo : Jagna Ciuchta © Adagp, Paris, 2021

“As is often the case, for my titles I chose a reg­ister sim­ilar to that of B movies, some­what exces­sive, inex­pen­sive and acces­sible to everyone. What I like in B series films, is that no one takes them­selves too seri­ously in them, they are more about unabashed enjoy­ment than ambi­tion, but they also deal with polit­ical sub­jects. And then the ideas this title evokes are not new (or not all of them) in my exhi­bi­tions. They res­onate within all the other invited works. The belly is an energy centre and an inter­sec­tion of desires, sex­u­ality, breath, diges­tion, all kinds of plea­sures, mater­nity, emo­tions and bil­lions of bac­teria. It is a cave with its own ecosystem and art his­tory, a living con­tainer, a cosmos in its own right, a site of trans­for­ma­tion. I like the idea that the exhi­bi­tion is a belly. There are folds, places where iden­ti­ties overlap, improb­able con­ti­gu­i­ties, secrets, pas­sages that open onto other dimen­sions. The cosmic rein­forces our link to the Earth and to every­thing beyond us. But it also thrusts this title (and the exhi­bi­tion) into a fan­tas­tical fic­tion, which I hope, makes us smile.”
Interview by Cécile Archambeaud for the first phase of the exhi­bi­tion at the Centre of art image/imatge, Orthez.

Since 2011, through invi­ta­tions to other artists to par­tic­i­pate in her own prac­tice, Jagna Ciuchta’s work has devel­oped and increased in com­plexity. Her scal­able prac­tice, pre­sented as group exhi­bi­tions, is a vector for affec­tive and aes­thetic rela­tion­ships that are indis­so­ciable from the eco­nomic and insti­tu­tional aspects of her prac­tice, as well as its rela­tion­ship to its milieu. Driven by a desire for real, sym­bolic and aes­thetic autonomy vis-à-vis the insti­tu­tional frame­work, Jagna Ciuchta defines her own mon­stra­tion and doc­u­men­ta­tion tools. Her works stage the con­fu­sion between real and fan­ta­sised reg­is­ters, internal and external spaces, the self and others in a rad­ical form of hos­pi­tality. Using the motif of incor­po­rating works that she immerses in her scenogra­phies or pho­tographs, Jagna Ciuchta dons the invis­ible role of the cura­tor—she speaks of “naive curating”—playing with the fringes of the insti­tu­tions where her work is dis­played. Her hos­pi­tality, marked by a cer­tain eroti­cism, in the sense of a desire for con­tact, envel­op­ment, or even absorp­tion, leads to a sort of self-efface­ment, a con­tinual shift and unstable forms. Jagna Ciuchta’s mech­a­nisms are con­stantly evolving; she con­tin­u­ally reor­gan­ises the dis­play trans­forming her scenog­raphy, imbued with its own rhythm, from the opening right until the end of the exhi­bi­tion. From another per­spec­tive revealed by the strong visual pres­ence of the scenog­raphy, the invited artists are also con­tained within her, assim­i­lated, or even digested by her com­po­si­tion. The artist’s omnipo­tence thus emerges, her arbi­trary and emo­tional choices, her ability to create other value sys­tems, to do things dif­fer­ently to a curator, while remaining fully aware of the risk of recip­rocal can­ni­bal­i­sa­tion inherent to the act of wel­coming or desiring the other. Jagna Ciuchta’s oeuvre is located in the ten­sion between these two extremes.

This exhi­bi­tion is copro­duced with the Center of art image/imatge, Orthez, where a first chapter was on dis­play from 11 June to 28 August 2021.
It is sup­ported by Antoine de Galbert Collection thanks to their loan of Miriam Cahn, Patty Chang, Graciela Iturbide, Dorothea Tanning and T. Venkanna’s works,
by Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur thanks to their loan of Nan Goldin’s work,
by Loevenbruck and Piotr Stanislawski Gallery thanks to their loan of Alina Szapocznikow’s work,
by Electronic Arts Intermix and 49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine for Nancy Holt’s work
by oeufs-de-yoni.com shop for Marta Huba’s work.